New Siri lawsuit also accuses Apple of over-promising functionality

A second lawsuit over Siri's functionality on the iPhone 4S has popped up—the …

A second lawsuit over Apple's "virtual personal assistant" Siri has been filed in as many weeks. The new lawsuit, filed earlier this week in a Los Angeles District Court, mirrors one filed earlier this month in New York that claimed Apple over-sells Siri's abilities in its advertising.

"Apple's deceptive commercials diverge greatly from the actual functionality and operation of the Siri feature as experienced by Plaintiff and fellow consumers," reads a copy of the complaint seen by the Los Angeles Times. "Siri would either not understand what Plaintiff asked, or, after a long wait, provided the wrong answer."

The claims in this week's suit are similar to those from the lawsuit filed on March 12. Both assert that Apple's commercials and marketing campaigns imply that Siri is much more intelligent than it is, but that the assistant rarely understands what the users are actually asking for. Both suits seek class status in their respective states. (Incidentally, the New York suit cites an Ars article from 2011 examining Siri's data usage habits, but draws a different conclusion from the article than most readers. While many of you felt Siri didn't use much data at all, the lawsuit claims it as proof that Siri gobbles huge amounts of monthly data.)

When we recently surveyed Ars readers on their Siri usage, almost 30 percent of the 2,801 votes we received said that they no longer use the assistant because they tried it and didn't like it. Another 20 percent said they still use it but have complaints, while 22.5 percent said they still use it and like its functionality. Indeed, Siri is technically still in beta (and we felt that was an appropriate label when reviewing it), so perhaps Apple should consider laying off the marketing until Siri moves out of beta—or becomes more reliable for a larger swath of users.

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

89 Reader Comments

Man, class action lawyers really love to sue Apple don't they? I wonder if I'll get another mail telling me that I'm party to the lawsuit and can fill out paperwork to get $15 again? As an added cherry on top, they can never send me the money again too.

I'm waiting for the day when I get a mail claiming that I'm a party to a class action lawsuit against the class action lawyers for never fulfilling their obligation to the people the bundled into the case, even though it was just a pittance.

I think I'm going to sue Gatorade because their commercials imply that it is a generally satisfying drink, when in fact I was just craving a root beer and the Gatorade I opened didn't taste like that at all. Damn those commercials!

reminds me of an episode of friends when, hold on, who was it again? Ross? broke his nose and went to the hospital and the receptionist was calling the number on the back of a, erm... mars bar or snicker, telling the call center guy that she was entitled refund or can demand something if she wasn't satisfied by the candy bar as she was indeed, dissatisfied.

My immediate reaction to the article was disbelief. I've tried enough voice recognition tools (and I've tried to write one myself) to know that it never works. Well, more accurately, it's not going to work perfectly without a lot of calibration and individualization. The idea of a tool that works as well as Siri does in the commercial for every American dialect and accent is ridiculous.

I feel like holding Apple to the standard in the ads would be akin to expecting Miller Lite to make oneself look manly. Yes, it's exactly what the advertisements suggest, but anyone with any relevant experience knows that it's hot air.

Calling it beta software is a cheap cop out. Journalists who propagate this fantasy assume equal guilt. The reality is Siri was a release feature for the 4s. None of you would give such deference if Dell released a laptop the Windows 8 consumer preview pre installed by default.

I think that if the ad shows a specific usage of the product, and you buy the product because (in whole or in part) of that, then it should be able to do what they show it doing. If it doesn't, then why shouldn't you be entitled to your money back? Whether or not people are simply using it wrong, expecting it to do more than shown, or whatever is certainly up in the air and a court can figure that out. But when you're basically locked in to a carrier when you buy the phone and out whatever money the phone cost you, and the thing doesn't do what they've been marketing it as doing then I think you've got a case.

My knee-jerk response to this was that it was pretty frivolous, but there's a part of me that hopes they win simply because I'm so sick of advertising that implies amazing things and doesn't deliver. We supposedly have laws about false advertising but adverts seem like they're quite frequently playing a game of how misleading they can be without actually lying.

My immediate reaction to the article was disbelief. I've tried enough voice recognition tools (and I've tried to write one myself) to know that it never works. Well, more accurately, it's not going to work perfectly without a lot of calibration and individualization. The idea of a tool that works as well as Siri does in the commercial for every American dialect and accent is ridiculous.

I feel like holding Apple to the standard in the ads would be akin to expecting Miller Lite to make oneself look manly. Yes, it's exactly what the advertisements suggest, but anyone with any relevant experience knows that it's hot air.

This is one lawsuit that I think probably does deserve an airing.

Siri is NOT beta in the advert and definitely doesn't operate as shown. There's a big difference between using sexy people to advertise a beer and demonstrating functionality which, for most users, doesn't exist.

And we've all seen the Apple ads showing Siri do everything but wipe his ass. Even accepting the lame beer commercial analogy, I fail to see how "most adverts are misleading" equals "all adverts are allowed to me misleading". 2 wrongs don't make a right.

Also I'm pissed because they didn't put Siri on the new iPad. And I, em, wanted it's em, unfunctionality. Ahem. Bastards.

I think that if the ad shows a specific usage of the product, and you buy the product because (in whole or in part) of that, then it should be able to do what they show it doing. If it doesn't, then why shouldn't you be entitled to your money back? Whether or not people are simply using it wrong, expecting it to do more than shown, or whatever is certainly up in the air and a court can figure that out. But when you're basically locked in to a carrier when you buy the phone and out whatever money the phone cost you, and the thing doesn't do what they've been marketing it as doing then I think you've got a case.

I think that's a pretty reasonable assessment of this situation. I don't own an iPhone (and never will, thankyouverymuch), but my sister-in-law has one. She told me the other day that one of Apple's ads for Siri showed a kid with a guitar who asked Siri how to play a particular chord, and of course, Siri pulled it up for him. The rub here, though, was that was the only chord Siri knew how to find. Asking Siri for other chords produced no results or wrong results. It brings up the question of whether it was intentionally deceptive marketing--i.e., falsifying Siri's ability to find that chord to imply that Siri could find chords generally despite knowing that no such ability existed.

one of Apple's ads for Siri showed a kid with a guitar who asked Siri how to play a particular chord, and of course, Siri pulled it up for him. The rub here, though, was that was the only chord Siri knew how to find. Asking Siri for other chords produced no results or wrong results. It brings up the question of whether it was intentionally deceptive marketing

Wow, I didn't know that, but I'd say that's an excellent example of deceptive marketing. That's like advertising a GPS that actually only knows how to get to the location shown in the ad.

Think it is similar to those fast food commercials. You know, where you see a Big Mac or Whopper and it looks large, fresh veggies, really appetizing. Whereas when you get one, it barely looks like what was advertised (squashed, wilted lettuce, green tomatoes, greasy, etc..)

However, I don't think Apple should be advertising Siri as a feature if they say the product is still in Beta stage, and don't state so in the adverts.

Have people sued over auto-correcting in text messages even if their fingers didn't fumble? To me, it's the same thing. Technology is released prior to it being 100% right, but we accept it to awe over it and try it at the current capacity. If you bought a 4S solely because of Siri, that was your mistake. If the device were nothing but a voice translation service, it would be one thing, but it isn't. You also have to accept that advertising is *advertising*.

Apparently we've all forgotten infomercials and how generally terrible those products actually are despite all of the marketing hype and poor souls you know that bought one.

I only use the dictation feature with my 4s and with Siri I really only use it to plot directions on Google Maps. Other than that I rarely use it because like others have said, it really doesn't do all that much. However when you're stuck in traffic drafting work emails, the voice dictation is awesome!

They should take a voice recording from one of the commercials and simply play it back and see what answer Siri gives.

I have no doubt that Siri would work properly given the conditions in the commercial (quiet room, clear speaker, easy commands). Siri isn't as bad as a lot of other speech recognition stuff I've used in the past. The service is not 100% for sure, but it works reasonably well as long as you know what it can do. Trying to ask Siri to do something it doesn't know how to do is an exercise in frustration.

I am not fan of class action, but I agree with the general principle that Siri was the main marketing point of the 4S, and a large part of the mass upgrades that came from the release. Sure the device is faster, but its really just the same exact thing as the 4, and they went so far as to disable Siri for the older phones that had already installed it from the app store, to make it that much more of a selling point for the 4s. They then showed commercials with the device working perfectly, understanding every single word, no matter what the situation the user was in, and that simply is not the reality, and not even close to the reality of it. It might be a beta product, but then don't use a beta product as the core feature to sell your device. Or at least show some commercials with siri spinning around for 30 seconds and telling you there was an error.. that would at least be realistic... Or maybe deciphering your phrase of "call mike jones" into "would you like me to do a search on "ball spike cones"?"

Any actual personal assistants should be highly offended that this thing is even called one...

I completely agree! Not only does it not work as well here in Germany as it does in America, but I really have to say every single word like in the advertisement just to get the basic functionality shown in the ads. What's the difference to any other voice control? AND the TV ad does not state Siri is Beta, just that Wifi sequences are shortened.

Bottom line: I was excited about Siri, especially after seeing all the good reviews in America. I knew it would not be perfect nor would it have all the functionality. So I went out to get the iPhone 4S and half a year later there is no improvement in functionality (and one would expect gradual improvement in a beta) essentially rendering Siri useless and hence for some people the iPhone 4S a senseless purchase

Man, class action lawyers really love to sue Apple don't they? I wonder if I'll get another mail telling me that I'm party to the lawsuit and can fill out paperwork to get $15 again? As an added cherry on top, they can never send me the money again too.

I'm waiting for the day when I get a mail claiming that I'm a party to a class action lawsuit against the class action lawyers for never fulfilling their obligation to the people the bundled into the case, even though it was just a pittance.

Maybe Apple should cut out all that false advertising.... or not. People will eventually turn sour on Apple and it opens up a nice sweet spot for competition.

Not a big deal.

Enjoy the class action suits because if companies like AT&T have their way, you'll have to sue individually in order to get anything from companies in the future.